Starting Eleven

by Bali Rai

  But that wasn’t easy to do. Adam had moved into midfield, and for some reason each time I looked up he was close by. I grabbed Steven.

  ‘That Adam’s got it in for me,’ I told him. ‘Cover me.’

  ‘No worries, mate,’ replied Steven. ‘I got him.’

  We gave away a free kick just outside our eighteen-yard area and as I looked for someone to mark, I saw Adam. He was standing on the six-yard line with his hand up in the air. I walked over and stood between him and the goal. He nudged me with his shoulder. It felt like it was made of rock. But I didn’t chicken out. I nudged him back.

  ‘I’m gonna score from this,’ he hissed to me. ‘You ain’t stopping me . . .’

  I nodded but kept quiet. Suddenly I felt a presence at my side. It was Steven.

  And behind him, standing by the goalpost, was Abs. I got ready for the ball to come into the box, but it didn’t. As Adam pushed me out of the way, the ball sailed harmlessly wide. That didn’t stop Adam though. He pushed me forward and into the ground and landed on top of me. As he did so, he dug his elbow into my ribs and my face into the grass.

  ‘AGHHH!!!!’ I groaned as I tasted mud for the second time. And then the wind just disappeared out of my lungs.

  All around me it went off. Adam was having a go at Steven, who had pushed him. And Adam’s team-mates, Harry and Dave, joined in, with Chris and Abs having a go too. I heard the whistle go a few times and then I heard Adam call Mr Turner names.

  ‘RIGHT!’ I heard Mr Turner say as I slowly got my breath back. ‘I don’t want a thug like you in my team. You’re off!’

  As I sat up to take some more air in, Adam leaned over and spoke to me.

  ‘Didn’t wanna play for this team anyway,’ he said. ‘I’m goin’ to the Eagles.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ I said, trying not to grimace as my ribs throbbed.

  ‘Look out for me,’ he warned. ‘I’m not done with you yet . . .’

  And then he walked off, calling our team a bunch of girls. His two mates, Dave and Harry, went after him and finally, after I’d had time to recover a bit, Mr Turner told us he’d seen enough.

  ‘Trial’s over,’ he said. ‘Go and get changed. Mr James and I will be in shortly.’

  We didn’t have to wait long. Mr Turner did the same as he had after the first trial. We stood and waited nervously as he read out each name slowly. Once again I didn’t hear my name. He’d called out eight names before one of my friends was called out. That was Jason, who shouted ‘YES!’ when he heard his name.

  Then Mr Turner called out the names Leon, Corky, Steven and Gurinder, one after the other. There were only three names left to call out and me, Chris and Abs were still waiting. I had a bad feeling in my belly. I hadn’t made it . . .

  ‘Chris,’ said Mr Turner.

  Chris looked at me and shrugged, as if to say ‘Sorry, mate’. I wanted to be sick. I had to be in the squad.

  ‘Abs,’ Mr Turner added a moment later.

  Abs jumped up and down on the spot, whooping with delight. But then he saw my face and he stopped. There was one name left to call out and too many boys waiting to be told! I hadn’t made it. All my friends were in the team and I was going to have to forget about it . . .

  ‘And . . . Dal,’ Mr Turner called out after what seemed like five years!

  ‘YES!’ I shouted. ‘Yes, yes, yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’

  After congratulating us and saying well done to the boys who hadn’t made it, Mr Turner told us to be back at 9 a.m. on Saturday.

  ‘We’re going to do warm-ups and tactics before the game against Clarendon United, which kicks off at eleven.’

  I sat down on a bench, holding my sore ribs.

  ‘You gonna be OK?’ Steven asked me.

  ‘Yeah – just a bruise or two,’ I told him.

  ‘Forget the bruises,’ said Chris. ‘We did it!’

  ‘We’re all Rushton REDS!’ Jason sang out. ‘RUSHIE REDS, RUSHIE REDS, RUSHIE REDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’

  I sat down on a bench and smiled, relieved that I had made it. It felt great!

  Chapter 8

  Saturday

  IT WAS COLD and wet when we turned up for our first game. Abs was actually shivering and Jason had a bit of a cold. His nose was red and snotty. He was sniffing constantly.

  ‘It’s freezing,’ said Chris as we walked towards the changing rooms.

  ‘Like Eskimo cold,’ I replied.

  ‘Bet the inside of the clubhouse is going to feel like an igloo too,’ added Abs.

  When we got inside we found three of the squad waiting for us. One of them nodded to us.

  ‘All right?’ he said. He was called Byron and the lads with him were Pete and Ben.

  I said hello as Steven and Gurinder walked in too. We sat down and started talking about the game.

  ‘Who we playing today?’ asked Jason. ‘What are they like?’

  ‘Clarendon United,’ Byron told him. ‘They’re really good.’

  ‘How d’you know that?’ asked Abs.

  ‘My brother used to play for them,’ explained Byron. ‘They’ve got loads of teams; right up to adults.’

  I watched as some more lads walked in.

  One of them – a tall lad with blond hair and freckles – I knew already. His name was Anthony, although everyone called him Ant. He was followed in by Rajvir and Will, two lads I hadn’t met before the trials.

  ‘Corky told me that Clarendon are the best team in the league along with Evington Eagles,’ I told everyone.

  Ant nodded and then rubbed his hands together. ‘Clarendon won the league last year and the Eagles won the City Cup,’ he replied. ‘And they’re our two closest rivals.’

  ‘If we can beat them,’ added Ben, ‘then we can beat any of the other teams.’

  Chris and me nodded at the same time.

  By the time Leon and Corky arrived, Mr Turner was already going through some tactics. They were closely followed by two lads who looked the same. Twins called Alfie and Tom. When the whole squad had taken a seat, Mr Turner continued.

  ‘OK, lads, let’s get down to it . . .’

  Alfie held up his hand.

  ‘Yes, Alfie?’ asked Mr Turner.

  ‘Tom and I are injured,’ replied Alfie.

  ‘Oh – OK. What’s the problem?’

  ‘We were playing football at home and hurt our shins – they’re really badly bruised,’ explained Tom.

  ‘Both of you?’ asked Mr Turner.

  They nodded together.

  ‘At the same time?’ asked Chris, grinning.

  They nodded again.

  ‘Oh,’ said Mr Turner. ‘Anyone else got an injury?’

  I turned and looked at the rest of the squad. I wasn’t expecting anyone else to put their hands up. But I was about to get a shock. Rajvir, Will, Pete and Ben all put their hands up. That meant we were down to ten players and no substitutes. It was unbelievable!

  ‘Right,’ said Mr Turner. ‘Looks like we’ve got a problem before we’ve even begun . . .’

  Jason put up his hand.

  ‘You’re not going to tell me that you’re injured too, are you?’ said Mr Turner.

  ‘No, sir. I just wanted to know how we’re going to play with ten men?’

  Mr Turner smiled. ‘Well . . .’ he began as Mr James and Miss Rice walked in too, ‘there is something I wanted to tell you all at the trial . . .’

  ‘We’ve got two extra players with two more on their way,’ added Miss Rice.

  ‘Nice one!’ said Chris. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Getting changed,’ said Mr James, ‘which is what you lot should be doing.’

  Abs looked from me to Chris to Jason.

  ‘Why are they getting changed somewhere else?’

  This time Miss Rice cracked a big smile. She looked at Mr Turner, who nodded.

  ‘Because they’re members of my team,’ she told us.

  ‘Your team?’ I blurted out. ‘But your team are—’

  ‘Yes, I
know,’ she said, cutting me off. ‘My team are girls!’

  ‘NO WAY!’ shouted Abs. ‘No way, no way, no way!’

  We were still moaning about girls playing with us when we got outside. Well, Abs and Steven were. But that wasn’t going to be the last surprise. The girls hadn’t come out yet, so we were doing stretches by the side of the pitch, led by Mr James.

  ‘We’re gonna get thumped,’ said Abs.

  ‘And laughed at,’ said Steven. ‘The shame . . .’

  ‘They should have told us,’ added Chris. ‘I mean, that’s not fair, is it – just telling us like that?’

  Mr James told us to stop and gather round. There were a lot of disgruntled faces.

  ‘Listen, lads,’ he began. ‘I know it’s not what you were expecting, but we think that it’ll be really good for the team.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Corky. ‘Because we’ll get beat every week?’

  Mr James shook his head. ‘One of the reasons you made the squad, Corky, was because you looked like a battler during the trial – now you’re just being negative . . .’

  ‘But he’s right,’ I told Mr James. ‘Boys and girls don’t play together. They’re just not as good as us.’

  ‘You might live to regret those words, Dal,’ replied Mr James. ‘The girls we’ve chosen are fantastic players.’

  ‘No way!’ said Byron. ‘One tackle and they’ll run home crying . . .’

  ‘And what happens if they break a nail?’ asked Chris. ‘My sister cried for two days when she broke one of hers.’

  ‘Yeah, but your sister’s mental,’ said Abs.

  ‘Good point,’ replied Chris, grinning.

  ‘Just give them a chance,’ pleaded Mr James. ‘You haven’t even met them or seen them play yet.’

  ‘Sir, where’s your accent from?’ asked Jason, totally randomly.

  ‘Middlesbrough, son . . .’

  ‘Are they like Newcastle?’ asked Abs cheekily. He knew that Newcastle and Middlesbrough were big rivals.

  ‘Leave it, Abs, or you’ll spend the rest of the morning doing press-ups,’ said Mr James. Only he was smiling when he said it. Lucky Abs.

  We went through forty more minutes of training and working with the practice footballs. It involved lots of short sprints and stretching exercises and then a long run around the edges of the pitch. As our muscles warmed up, I wondered where the girls were.

  ‘I thought the girls were here?’ I asked Mr James.

  ‘They are, son,’ he replied. ‘Miss Rice has them warming up inside.’

  ‘See?’ said Abs, looking upset. ‘They’re already getting treated better than us!’

  ‘They’re just going through the same thing as you are,’ said Mr James. ‘And Miss Rice knows what she’s doing. Her team were league champions last season.’

  ‘Yeah, but that was in the Barbie league,’ joked Chris.

  ‘Let’s just give them a chance, lads,’ replied Mr James.

  At the end of training Mr James told us to keep warm and practise with the balls in any way we wanted to. Freestyle, he called it. I teamed up with Chris and Byron and we formed a triangle and began to pass the ball to each other, with only two touches allowed. On my fifth pass I looked up to play the ball to Chris. But he was just grinning like a crazy man. And then he burst into laughter.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ I asked as someone came up behind me and tapped my shoulder.

  ‘Oi!’ I said, spinning round and coming face to face with Lily and Parvy. They were both wearing football kit and boots.

  ‘Hello, my darling boyfriend,’ said Lily with a huge grin. ‘Shall we play . . . ?’

  Chapter 9

  BY THE TIME I’d got over my shock we were on the pitch, ready to kick off against Clarendon United. My dad was watching from the sidelines and he waved at me and shouted encouragement. Chris’s and Abs’s dads were there too, alongside Jason’s mum.

  ‘You can do it, son!’ my dad shouted at me.

  I nodded and held my thumb up to him. Then I turned and looked around at my team-mates. Lily was playing in midfield with Jason, Byron and Corky. I was at the back alongside Steven, with Leon on the right and Parvy on the left. Up front were Abs and Chris, and Gurinder was in goal. The subs were Ant and the twins, even though they were injured, and two more girls, Emma and Penny.

  ‘We’re in trouble,’ said Byron as I stood behind him.

  ‘Positive,’ I replied. ‘We’ve got to be positive . . .’

  Only it was hard to be positive. When Clarendon United’s players had seen that we had girls in our team, they started laughing at us. Some of them were taunting us, asking if we all had to wear skirts and stuff like that. Mr Turner had used it in the final team talk, telling us to remember their annoying taunts so we’d try even harder.

  ‘You’re a team,’ he told us. ‘You play for each other and you back each other up – no matter what.’

  Now as we stood in the rain, waiting for the whistle to start the game, I wasn’t at all confident. In fact, I was expecting to lose. But I tried to shake off the negative feeling. My dad had always taught me to be positive, in any situation. If you believed you were going to lose before you started, you’d already lost.

  ‘Come on, lads!’ I shouted out, trying to get them going.

  ‘Er . . . ?’ said Lily, turning to me.

  ‘And girls!’ I added.

  ‘What a bunch of losers!’ shouted one of United’s players, a tall lad with long brown hair and zits on his forehead.

  ‘COME ON, YOU REDS!!!!!!!!!!’ I heard my dad sing out. Then Chris’s dad joined in too. We really were in a proper game! I took a deep breath and focused as Mr Turner, who was referee, blew on his whistle.

  *

  We did OK for the first fifteen minutes. Because we hadn’t played together before, there was a lot of simple passing, just like Mr James and Miss Rice had told us to do. We even had a couple of shots on goal but Chris missed with both of them. After about twenty minutes though, Clarendon started to get better. They were trying to get the ball out to their right wing, where they had a fast and skilful winger. He was playing against Parvy. I nudged Steven and nodded towards Parvy.

  ‘They’re trying to get to her,’ I said. Steven nodded. The ball had gone out for a throw-in to us and I trotted over to take it. Miss Rice was waiting for me.

  ‘Get some support in there for Parvy,’ she told me. ‘Don’t let her get isolated, OK, Dal?’

  ‘No problem, miss,’ I replied, throwing the ball to Jason.

  Jason swivelled and ran down the left before passing the ball inside to Abs. Abs waited for a second, knowing that there was a defender coming. Then he went to go left but switched at the last minute and the defender got caught out. He skidded through the mud and landed on his backside. Abs grinned and went on a run, taking two more of their players with him. Then he was at the by-line.

  He saw Byron making a run into the box and crossed so that Byron could just push the ball into the net. But Byron missed it and the ball fell to Lily. As she brought it under control, one of their defenders ran at her, making a growling noise. He was trying to scare her, put her off. But as we all watched, Lily waited until he got close, flicked the ball over his head and ran around him. She didn’t wait for the ball to hit the ground. Instead she volleyed it back towards Byron. This time he controlled it and passed it to his left. Quick as a flash Chris appeared and tapped the ball home underneath their goalie.

  ‘YESSSS!!!!!!!!!!!’ I shouted, pumping my fist in the air.

  1–0!

  We ended the half a goal up. But early in the second half they equalized from a corner. I tried desperately to reach the ball, but it went over my head and fell at the feet of one of their best players. As Steven tried to block him, he smashed the ball home and then turned to me.

  ‘Have that!’ he shouted. ‘Come on, lads – we’re not getting beat by a bunch of girls!’

  We tried to get it back together but suddenly we couldn’t pass the b
all properly and our teamwork just failed. I got the ball in defence and ran out with it, sidestepping a few challenges. Then I played the ball square to Corky, who was desperate to score. He played a one-two with Jason and when he got the ball back Abs started calling for it. But Corky ignored him and Lily too. He looked up and saw the goal in front of him. He was still quite far out but he swung back his left foot and took a shot. His right foot slipped in the mud though, just as he made contact with the ball. The ball went horribly wide and the Clarendon players all ran to Corky and made fun of him.

  ‘We knew you were rubbish!’ said one lad.

  ‘Had to join a girls’ team,’ said another lad. ‘Now he’s shooting like a girl too.’

  I could see Corky was getting angry and so could Leon and Byron. All three of us ran over to him and calmed him down. But things just got worse after that. Soon Clarendon United had scored another two goals. By the full-time whistle, we were cold, wet, muddy and down.

  ‘That’ll teach you to play with girls,’ said one of their players as we trudged off.

  ‘Three–one!’

  ‘Yeah,’ said another United player. ‘Go put your skirts back on!’

  I spun round to say something but Miss Rice caught hold of me.

  ‘Let them gloat,’ she told me. ‘A few more games and we’ll be right up there – you’ll see . . .’

  I shook my head. ‘We should have done better,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, and next time you will,’ she told me. ‘It’s early days. The soccer season is long and hard. Never mind about today. We’ll get it right next time. Now, go get showered.’

  Once everyone was dressed, Mr Turner called us all into the main part of the building which was a community centre. He sat us down and told us that we’d done very well.

  ‘But we got thumped!’ complained Corky.

  ‘Yes – but you played for each other. As the games continue, we’ll get better,’ promised Mr Turner. ‘The more we practise together, the better we’ll be.’

  ‘Oh, and one more thing,’ added Mr James. ‘There’ll be a television crew at Tuesday’s training. I’ve got consent forms for you to give to your parents. If you want to be part of the TV thing, you need to get these signed and bring them back to me on Tuesday.’